The online education site Coursera continues growing with amazing vigor, having recently added 90 new classes from 29 newly-joined universities. There are now courses in Spanish, French, Italian, and Chinese. All the courses are free. The list of 62 universities … Continue reading
In my recent review of Coding Freedom by E. Gabriella Coleman, published on io9, I describe the tension between the open-source movement in software and the tightening of copyright law. Coleman examines in anthropological detail the conflict between the open-source … Continue reading
Last weekend, amid biblical rains drenching the west coast, I went to the Humanity Plus conference in San Francisco, along with my bright-eyed friend Dian. Thanks to the magic of the Internet and a service that directly links people in … Continue reading
Accelerando is the quintessential singularity novel. Strap yourself in, and prepare for lobsters, agalmic economies, coke-can computronium spaceships, hive minds, altruism, a solitary imam ensconced in his own virtual reality/hell, terraforming, and the Vile Offspring, aka sentient corporate contracts. Continue reading
Fiction puts us in the middle of a story, a person’s head and heart, so that we can experience what it is to be someone else. This recent collection of short stories, Digital Rapture, will introduce you to classic and recent writers in the field of “singularity fiction.” These stories will warp the sense of self, tweak your dials, perturb the moral sense, and expand your understanding. Continue reading
Presentations from the Oct 13-14 Singularity Summit are online. I recommend the presentations by Steven Pinker, Temple Grandin, Jaan Tallin, Vernor Vinge, John Wilbanks, Melanie Mitchell, and Linda Avey. Go to the post to see links to each talk, and others at the conference. Continue reading
Time calls to each of us, a quiet hum at the edge of awareness. For some, it is the siren song of a lazy summer afternoon, the sleepy midwestern drone of crickets in a Bradbury idyll, watching crinkly leaves drift down the street in golden afternoon light. For others… Continue reading
[All videos for the summit are available. Click a link, then click “Watch Full Video]. See also my review for Day 1 of Singularity Summit. On the second day of the Singularity Summit, presenters took their gloves off, rolled up … Continue reading
Is the person sitting next to you a human being? The question hardly makes sense; how could she not be human? Yet in the coming years the question will become commonplace, even urgent. Continue reading
The Khannas are looking into the near future, and trying to get a glimpse of the next few decades. Even a partial scan of the emerging landscape is like gazing through a kaleidoscopic looking glass into a strange new country. Welcome to the new normal… Continue reading
